(Isaac) Adolphe Crémieux

Crémieux, (Isaac) Adolphe (ēsäkˈ ädôlfˈ krāmyöˈ) [key], 1796–1880, Jewish-French statesman and political writer. A lawyer, he served briefly as minister of justice in the provisional government of 1848 after the overthrow of King Louis Philippe. He supported Louis Napoleon (later Napoleon III) for president, but opposed his coup (Dec., 1851) and as a result was imprisoned temporarily in 1851. In 1870, after Napoleon III's fall, he became minister of justice in the government of national defense. In this position he eliminated the death penalty for political offenders, abolished slavery in the colonies, and extended full French citizenship rights to the Jews of Algeria. He was president (1876) of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, through which he advocated international Jewish emancipation and founded Jewish schools in Cairo and Alexandria.